Here we are again after a bit longer break than I anticipated. Life, projects, emotional roller-coasters and sleep get in the way.
We open to some kind of emergency on the ship; Picard is barking orders, Data is making inputs on the console and Worf and Riker are in a Jefferies Tube climbing to some location.
Data makes preparations to eject the warp core as Riker and Worf arrive at their destination inside a control room in the ship's starboard warp nacelle, a large isolation door between the room and the length of the nacelle is open and an alien man stands at its threshold in something of a trance.
Power has been cut-off to the nacelles but it'll take some time for the rest of the energy to vent-out. Riker has made his way up on the scaffolding and it approaching the suicidal man cautiously, trying to talk him down from the ledge (so to speak) but the man responds in a rather fixed and hypnotic manner that he knows what he has to do, ignoring Riker's pleas to turn around and come away from the threshold.
The man jumps through the (apparently meaningless) barrier between the nacelle and the room and into the plasma stream where he is evaporated, Riker slaps the wall and anguish.
It's always a good sign when your episode starts with a violent suicide.
Later, most of the senior staff is in the Ready Room talking with Riker, letting him express his sorrow and grief, trying to ease his guilt, while also talking about how the crewman's suicide came out of nowhere as recent psychological evaluations showed him to be stable, and he was excited to be recently assigned to the ship, the nacelle room, and his work on a refit to the engines was putting them ahead of schedule.
Picard remarks that in all of his years as a commanding officer he's had to give out death notices for many officers but never one due to a suicide; he tasks Troi and Worf with investigating the officer's last days in order to piece together what happened so an explanation could be offered.
Talking with Geordi, Picard learns the ship can be underway again within the hour, they're tasked with dealing with a medical emergency at their next destination and Starfleet has granted the Enterprise with exceeding warp-speed limitations to make it on time. (Callback!)
Data walks up to Geordi and begins a discussion about a life form having a natural instinct for self-preservation and how the officer's suicide contradicts that, Geordi rationalizes that the officer saw himself in a situation with no way out but suicide. Data says he can understand because he was in a similar situation once.
Geordi leans back on a wall and folds his arms, intrigued, and Season 1 Data makes a brief appearance and tries to imitate Geordi's totally ordinary and likely seen many times before arm folding stance. Data says shortly after he was activated on Omicron Theta and he began existing he struggled as his artificial brain tore down old pathways to make way for newer, more complex ones. He considered doing a clean-wipe of his mind to start fresh (reformatting him, in a way) but chose, rather, to struggle through it figuring things would be better in the end. Geordi wishes the officer from the beginning of the episode had the same feelings.
And here the show has a conversation that…. That's really within its grasp and topical for what Star Trek often tries to do: deal with real-world 20th/21st century problems and give them an interesting spin on things for us to see things a different way or to evaluate circumstances in a broader setting. If it's absurd for our characters to treat someone differently just because they're an alien, it's just as absurd in our world to treat someone differently because of their race, the national origin, religion, sexual orientation or whatever.
Here we have an artificial life form talking about suicide and thinking about it in a very binary sense but it is something he's struggled with and seems to understand and it makes sense. He chose to struggle through his problems feeling there's light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.
And Geordi seems to accept this and wishes that the crewman had thought the same way.
This ignores, on the part of the writers through the characters, that some people don't have the option to just "get over it and think of the positive at the end of the tunnel" People who suffer from suicide most of the time deal with clinical depression and thus have actual, physical, problem with their brain chemistry that prevents them from seeing that light at the end of the tunnel, all they can see is the blackness around them and it consumes them.
It's not a matter of "getting over it", so to speak, it's a matter of having an actual condition that prevents you from being able to do so. It's like telling Geordi to "get over" being blind. Yes, he has a prosthetic that helps him see, but it's akin to a depressed/suicidal person being put on medications that balances out their brain chemistry. But, physically, Geordi can't "get over" being blind any more than a depressed person can "get over" being depressed.
Really, this scene sort-of reflects the "depression really isn't an illness but is just a person who needs to nut-up and deal" mentality that permeates the thoughts many Americans have when it comes to mood disorders. I would have expected more from this show on this topic (and it becomes even more muddy as the episode progresses and we learn the real reason why the crewman killed himself.)
It would have been better if the conversation hadn't ended there and had Geordi respond with something like, "Well it's not that easy for humans and other species. Our emotions have a way of clouding our thinking and our logic, you being unhindered by that knew that light was at the end of that tunnel and that one day things will be better. But for us, it's a lot more complex than that. That darkness has a way of preventing you from seeing things even if they're right in front of your face. And when you're at that point, there really may seem to be no way out."
Now, sure, we could argue that suicide, clinical depression and all of that is very, very uncommon in TNG's time; that therapy, medication and other things have made those things obsolete -hence why Picard has never dealt with a suicide in his tenure- but if this is a conversation it's going to have it needs to ignore what it's like in that time period and talk about it like it's still a problem society deals with, it's just the helpful options are more available and society is more open to helping people get the help they need rather than telling them to get over it and suck it up.
Anyway…
Worf and Troi arrive in the crewman's quarters, Worf and Troi have some conversation about the orderly state of the room. Worf thinks it's odd that someone suicidal would have no outward sign (again, many suicidal people give no outward sign of struggle) a framed picture of the crewman's girlfriend is found on his nightstand. They go to his computer and watch his last log-entry where he speaks of pulling double shifts to get their nacelles up to order and that he's looking forward to some time off to spend with his girlfriend. Worf and Troi agree that his demeanor and log entry don't seem to be that of someone about to take their own life. For what it's worth, they're mostly right. But, again, it's not uncommon for suicidal people to leave behind no note and to otherwise seem normal and looking forward to future things.
Troi speaks with the girlfriend in sickbay and she expressed surprise over his passing, especially due to suicide, and talks about what they last did and their future plans together. She speaks of how warm and caring he was, Troi chalks some of this up to him being a partial-empath due to his mixed parentage; but promises to look more into the incident and keep the girlfriend updated on what she finds.
Troi enters the nacelle control room and runs into the crewman's superior officer in the nacelle, whom the crewman had some struggles with, the officer leaves the room for a moment leaving Troi behind to continue her investigation. Troi looks over the crewman's station and then goes up to the catwalk in front of the isolation door to the nacelle, as she nears the barrier she seems to have a wave of emotion and faintness before climbing back down to lower level, and being surprised by the officer re-entering the room. Troi is unsure if she's okay.
Later Troi is being given a medical evaluation after what happened, but no one is sure what is going on; Troi wants to go back to the nacelle to investigate further but Crusher recommends Troi wait until the brain-chemistry that controls her empathic abilities settles down.
In her quarters, Troi is going over more of the crewman's logs but still cannot find any signs of distress. Worf visits and the two have a conversation about what happened and if it could have been an "empathic echo." Troi is unsure, but relates a story of how her maternal grandfather used to tell her stories through telepathy by the fire in her old home on Betazed and how she thinks she can still hear him and those stories when she visits that home.
Worf excuses himself and goes to Ten Forward where Riker is meeting with some woman. Riker goes to the bar for a drink and the two have am awkward, rhetorical, conversation built in hypotheticals where Worf seems unsure if he need ask Riker for "permission" to see Troi romantically; and Riker doesn't feel his permission need be given but is unsure on what (or who) Worf could be talking about because Riker is thick.
Troi and Worf enter the nacelle control room, Troi goes up to the catwalk by the isolation door and asks for it to be opened, it can only be opened for a short time before something unclear happens, but Worf does it. (Because just anyone can do this, I guess.)
As the door opens, Troi has a series of eerie telepathic flashes, one of a woman screaming for help as she backs away from Troi's POV, another out-of-focus flash of a stern-looking man -presumably from the woman's POV- and finally a flash to the nacelle room under construction at Utopia Planitia, she remains in this vision for some time as she explores the dimly lit, cluttered, room. She hears laughing going on behind a door, when she opens the door to the Jefferies Tube she sees the woman from earlier and another man standing there making out, they look to her and laugh.
Troi turns around and is abruptly face-planted into Worf's chest back into reality. (She's now in the lower area of the room where she was in the vision.)
There's a talk in the Observation Lounge about Troi's experience, she's unsure who the man or woman making out were, but she thinks she knows who the stern-man was, it's believed the visions were being seen from the suicidal crewman's POV. Troi is going to go over the personnel files of the shipyard to identify these people, one of whom was the dead crewman, and she's going to revisit the nacelle room this time with a inhibitor to her telepathic abilities to maybe help her manage the visions better.
She finds a man who worked at both the shipyard that built the Enterprise and now works in Engineering; she goes to question him with Worf. He's unsure of any information he can provide and cannot remember much about what happened to him just a few years ago (they let this guy handle plasma-tools, folks), Troi tells him she can tell if someone is lying and offers him a chance to speak with her if anything comes to him.
Later, Troi admits she was bluffing with him, saying she couldn't read his mind even though he's human and should be able to. Her and Worf want to continue their investigation in the morning, after a series of awkward goodbyes in her quarters Worf leans in for a kiss, Troi returns it and we fade to commercial and come back after the deed where Troi has a shattered spine.
No? She came out of it okay? I though Klingons liked things rough?
Troi and Worf bask in morning-after afterglow romanticism when Crusher pages Troi to let her know the empathic-blocking serum is ready. Troi acknowledges. She then pages Worf to let him know the medical supplies are ready for transferring. Contexutally for Crusher, Worf is needlessly sharp and rude to her over the com. Don't cock-block Worf. Or morning-after-block Worf. Just don't mess with Worf, okay?
In Sickbay Troi is given the serum that'll suppress her empathic abilities shortly before Worf comes in with girlfriend, having helped to set-up the containment of the medical supplies in a cargo bay. Troi and Worf are ready to return to the nacelle tube when the girlfriend tells Worf there's a problem with their set-up in the cargo bay and needs Worf's help. As Troi leaves the room alone she listens and watches the flirtatious banter and mannerisms between Worf and girlfriend.
In the nacelle tube investigations are going on and Troi seems unhindered by her empathic visions. She notes some changes around the room from her visions, some due to upgrades in the intervening time, one thing she notices is a closed panel that was open in the vision. The panel, actually inside the nacelle itself near the plasma injector, that was open in her vision is closed and it's said to likely have been closed since the ship was finished.
Geordi goes to open the panel which gives Troi some of her vision flashes again of the woman screaming and the man now working in engineering.
Troi relays these visions to Geordi and he performs some scans inside the opened panel and they find bone fragments/human remains imbedded in the bulkhead.
In Sickbay, Troi is given another injection of the serum to further suppress her empathic abilities while identification of the remains is conducted; it's surprising that 8-years imbedded in a futuristic metal, in space, caused a human corpse to turn into skeleton fragments, and they're found to be the remains of the female construction worker in Troi's visions of the past.
As they trying to piece together what happened they figure out Troi's visions were not from the POV of the deceased crewman's but from shifty crewman in engineering, the vision of him being a reflection of himself on a console.
Troi and Worf leave Sickbay to question Shifty some more, as they leave Worf makes it a point to thank girlfriend for her help, earning scornful looks from Troi as they leave the room, walk down the corridor and enter a turbolift.
Troi asks Worf if he's having second thoughts about their night together, he says he's not. Troi seems to chalk her concerns up to the inhibitor and opts to go to her quarters and for Worf to question Shifty some more on his own.
In her quarters Troi changes into her bunny suit and orders something from the replicator when her door chime rings, she welcomes in Shifty. Shifty is shifty and says Worf said Troi wanted to talk to him, Troi asks him, and then the computer, where Worf is. He's in girlfriend's quarters. She has security take Shifty to his room to hold him there.
Troi goes to girlfriend's quarters and uses her security privileges to enter the room where she finds Worf and girlfriend in embrace, they turn to her and laugh -similar to what happened in her vision from earlier- she panics, picks up a nearby phaser, and fires it at Worf, Worf falls to the floor with a large phaser wound to his chest. Girlfriend says Worf is dead.
Troi panics and runs out of the room, down the corridor and runs into Shifty being escorted by security. He smirks at her and says she knows what she has to do. She continues running and eventually makes her way into the nacelle room (she gets there by climbing UP a Jefferie's tube ladder from Deck 8.… Er… Troi? The nacelles are BELOW you. In the BACK of the ship!)
The nacelle room is empty, she walks up to catwalk and the isolation door opens on its own. Tearful, she says she knows what she has to do and prepares to jump into the plasma field. Before she can Worf has grabbed her and is asking what she is doing.
She "snaps back" to way earlier in the episode, back in standard uniform, and shows shock and surprise over Worf being alive.
Troi recaps her experiences to the rest of the crew, Geordi comes in and while there's no bone fragments inside the bulkhead he did find some cellular residue that likely belonged to Shifty. Shifty, and the woman and other man from Troi's vision all disappeared during the ship's construction. It's now pieced together Shifty, who's paternal granparent was telepathic, left an empathic "echo" in the room that was picked up by Troi and the crewman who committed suicide. Troi would have jumped too had it not been for Worf saving her.
It's surmised Shifty encountered a woman he cared for cheating on him, killed both her and the the person she was cheating with and then killed himself in grief.
As they leave, Worf notes that Troi expressed surprised at seeing Worf alive and wonders what role he played in her visions, she simply says that there's no fury like a woman scorned and leaves. As Worf takes his position he gives Troi a double-take of confusion.
Other than the odd talk and treatment around suicide at the beginning of the episode I think this one is pretty decent. It's there, nothing spectacular but nothing terrible either. I think it's interesting to see the parts of the nacelle here and the "murder mystery" is somewhat interesting.
Overall an okay episode.
